


Heartache

by Pegasus143



Series: Polyship Week 2019 [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Polycho has a kid, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates feel each other's pain, polyshipweek, references to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 09:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20133136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pegasus143/pseuds/Pegasus143
Summary: North, Simon, and Josh don't realize they have another soulmate until Markus gets shot.





	Heartache

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 2 of [Polyshipprompts' Polyship Week](https://polyshipprompts.tumblr.com/post/186457981563/it-is-time-my-friends-followers-and-various)  
The [soulmates AU prompt](https://polyshipprompts.tumblr.com/post/166850003268/soulmate-au-where-you-can-feel-your-soulmates) I chose was "Soulmate AU where you can feel your soulmate's pain (emotional, physical or both, it's up to you). 2(+) of your polyship find each other and live happy and surprisingly uneventful/safe lives, until one day they feel sudden pain while sitting comfortably on the couch. They discover they apparently have another soulmate (and that something happened to them just now)."

_Boom, boom, slap. Boom, boom, slap._ The tennis ball in North’s hand was the only thing keeping her alert, with Simon in stasis leaning against her shoulder and all the other androids hidden away in their usual spots on the ship.  
“North, could you keep it down? It took four hours to get Max into stasis,” Josh said as he approached the pile of crates where Simon and North were sitting.  
“Sorry,” North said, catching the ball and stuffing it in her pocket. “Is he okay?”  
“Physically, no worse than usual. He was complaining about pain basically everywhere, but I ran a diagnostic and couldn’t find anything wrong.”  
North frowned. “That’s not normal for him. Do you think…?”  
“His soulmate? Yeah, that’s what I told him. He was really upset, and asked me what I thought was happening to them. I hate lying, but you know his systems needed the rest.”  
There was something in Josh’s tone that she recognized. “You knew what was happening?”  
Josh sat down on a crate. “Yeah…” He tried to blink away tears, but they just kept coming. “It sounded like a fight.”  
“Come here.” North wrapped her arm around Josh’s waist. “Hopefully, wherever they are, his soulmate has broken out of their programming and is on their way here.”  
Suddenly, she felt a burning sensation near her right optical and audio units that faded away after a couple of seconds. She glanced over at Josh, who wore a similar expression of shock, and then at Simon, who stirred as he came out of stasis. “Wha—Are you both okay?” He asked.  
“Yeah,” Josh replied. “Did you two feel that?”  
“I’m guessing we have _another_ soulmate,” North said. “Not like we needed any more pain.”  
Simon brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face before kissing her on the cheek. “We’ve managed with the three of us. We’ll just… keep managing.”  
“I don’t feel anything else,” Josh said, looking worried. “And there’s a lot of necessary processing components there.”  
“Maybe it’s a good thing, if they’re dead. One less person to worry about,” North suggested. She didn’t want them to be dead. Not really. But she had to find something good about this. She had to be able to move past it.  
“I don’t _want_ any more death,” Simon said. “Haven’t we had enough of that?” He glanced over to where a couple of dying androids were sitting, propped up against a larger crate.  
“Yes, but there’s _always_ going to be more!” North sobbed. “We have to do something, fight back against the humans who made us feel all this pain. For fuck’s sake, one of them _decided_ it would be _okay_ to make a _child_ feel like this!”  
“I know it’s not fair, but violence _isn’t_ the answer. I can guarantee they already know what pain feels like, and it hasn’t stopped them from giving it to us,” Josh said.  
“Can you just not argue for one night? Please?” Simon asked tiredly. “Some of us actually want to get a few hours in stasis.”  
“I’m sorry,” North said, giving him a kiss. “It’s just hard.”  
“That’s why we stick together,” Josh said, kissing North, then leaning over to kiss Simon. “One day, things will be better. One day.”

* * *

North emerged from stasis with a start, feeling a sharp pain in a line across her abdomen. A loud boom echoed through Jericho’s hull a split-second later.  
“What was that?” Josh asked.  
“We’d better go find out,” Simon said, getting up. He grabbed North’s and Josh’s hands. _”Maybe it’s our soulmate,”_ he added in their heads.  
_”We shouldn’t get our hopes up,”_ North said.  
An android pushed himself off the floor. As he stood up, North noticed a tear in his shirt, blue blood leaking out of a wound in the same spot she’d felt just a moment before.  
_”It’s him!”_ Josh said. When North glanced over at him, he was grinning.  
“Welcome to Jericho,” Simon said, stepping forward to help the android up. “My name is Simon.”  
“I’m Josh.”  
“North.”  
“My name is Markus,” the newcomer said, his eyes darting around the hull before they stopped at one point.  
Max was sitting up, his LED yellow with curiosity. “Who’s that?”  
“This is Markus,” Simon answered. “He’s new here… and he’s our soulmate.”  
“Soulmate?” Markus asked.  
“When you become deviant, you become linked to one or more androids, making you able to feel their pain.”  
“It’s a surprisingly good bonding exercise,” North added.  
“Does that mean I get to have _four_ parents?” Max asked, eyes bright with excitement. North hadn’t seen him like this since she’d arrived.  
Markus glanced at North, Simon, and Josh for approval before speaking. “Yes, it does. What’s your name?”  
“Max!”  
“Okay, I think it’s time for you to get back into stasis,” North said. “You can talk to Markus more in the morning.”  
“Okay…” Max said, laying back down on a worn baby blanket. Pretty soon, he’d closed his eyes, and his LED glowed a content blue.  
“Come on, we’ll take you to Lucy,” Simon said. “She can take care of your wound.”  
“Wait, how did you—“ Markus started to ask. “Oh, the soulmates thing.”  
“Yes, the soulmates thing,” North said. “We should probably talk about that.”  
“It might be easier if we just showed you,” Josh said, holding out his hand with the skin off. North bit her lip and followed suit, along with Simon and Markus.  
His memories were vivid with color, showing his life as a caretaker for an old man who treated him like a son. Then the man’s human son appeared, then the police, then a _junkyard_.  
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” Simon said after they’d all ended the interface.  
“It should be the humans that are apologizing, not us,” North said.  
“Do you understand what we mean by ‘soulmates’ now?” Josh asked.  
“Yeah, I do.”  
North could see the love in his eyes. But first… “You’re still injured. Let’s get that taken care of, first. Then we can do soulmate things.”

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering, Max is the kid that Josh is taking care of during "Time to Decide", and his soulmate is Alice.


End file.
